A recent survey conducted by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech has revealed some interesting trends when it comes to how Americans purchase new smartphones. First and foremost, while many of us tech geeks pride ourselves on purchasing as much of our gear online as possible, a full 64 percent of Americans actually purchase their smartphones in-store.

Only 24 percent purchase their smartphones online, with the rest we assume purchasing them over the phone through their carrier.

But what’s perhaps most interesting is what smartphones are being pushed by carriers. Kantar’s research found that 63 percent of customers that walked into a retail store to buy a new smartphone were recommended a Samsung device. What’s most interesting is that this was double the rate for Apple recommendations and nearly 10 times the rate for smartphones made by Nokia.

And it should come as no surprise that 59 percent of those who were nudged towards a Samsung device walked out with one. 35 percent left with an Android smartphone made by another manufacturer, and only 6 percent purchased an iPhone.

But Apple needs not worry about its customers straying too far from the herd. iPhone users remain incredibly loyal, with Kantar describing a “strong emotional connection with the Apple brand and its devices.”

Kantar adds that consumers purchasing Apple’s iPhone models are the ones doing the least amount of pre-purchase research in part due to the strength of the brand, the rabid fanbase, and high satisfaction rate with iPhone hardware.

Nothing wrong with Apple doing what they do as the world still has enough demands to buy their high profit margin phones to give Apple a huge profit every year. But all Apple fans must wake up to the reality that high profit margin will never dominates in market share. Forget about iOS ruling the world, for now it is Android and it is not going to change, not until Apple starts to sell cheap phone in $99 range without contract.

quote: But all Apple fans must wake up to the reality that high profit margin will never dominates in market share.

Why is that important? Who would it be important for? Genuine questions.

Should Bang and Olufson try to sell more units by making a cheap sound system? Perhaps Mercedes should move down market to shift more cars?

The only reason Apple would make devices aimed at expanding their market share, which they could fairly easily, is if it would have a major beneficial impact on the health of their business and/or the Apple ecosystem. Neither of those things seem in need of an urgent boost at the moment, Apple makes more profits than the Android OEMs makers added together and the iOS ecosystem is currently much healthier, more dynamic and worth more than the Android ecosystem.

One day, maybe soon, Apple may make devices aimed at expanding their market share but I can’t see any pressing reasons for them to do so and I can see quite a few reasons why Apple would be cautious about doing such a thing.

Benedict Evans did an impressive piece of number crunching to explore what a cheap iPhone might do for Apple’s business. The short answer is not a lot but do have a look at the numbers as they are very interesting.

Ben Thompson also addressed this issue in a recent article where he looks at Apple’s small scale in India and, using a comparison with China, explores what this says about Apple’s business model and it’s relationship to market share.

quote: And as much as Tony refuses to believe it, Apple does care about market share.

Evidence?

Apple is delighted when it's products dominate markets, who wouldn't be. What Apple does not do is design it's product range around achieving market share or outselling the number of units sold by competitors. If they did then they would have released a super cheap iPhone by now (which would be technically easy to produce).

True believers from the Church of Market Share, find it impossible to conceive of any business which do not obsess about market share. For such believers market share is all important, achieving greater market share is supposed, somehow, to secures all sorts of obscure but magical advantages.

In reality Apple's business, the iOS developers community and the iOS ecosystem are all healthier and wealthier than the Android ecosystem.

The fact that more devices are sold that run on Android than run iOS confers not a single tangible benefit to Android OEMs, Android developers and Android end users.

- First off, when Apple was doing extremely well in the USA, YOU were here touting it, bragging about it and were just obviously tickled with it. Now that it's back down, it's again an "obsession for bozos"... I mean, really T, can you be more transparent?

- Secondly (and I should say most importantly) how can you come here day after day defending and obsessing on a COMPANY of all crazy things saying "Market share obsession is for bozos."? So, Obsessing on a company, agreeing with and defending every political move they make, every lawsuit they file, every illegal price fixing maneuver they do and every product they produce is perfectly fine, so long as the subject matter isn't "Market share" it's all good? Seriously ?

Now in the face of uncompromising logic like that , I know you will not respond, but reading that, can you at least think about yourself and what it is you are doing here?